Review of Northern (Re-Issue) [12k2009]

Vital Weekly (N)

Originally Northern was released two years ago, but the 1500 copies were sold in six months, so Taylor Deupree felt it was necessary to do a re-issue, but he calls this a ‘directors cut’. I always understood that to be a term for film makers who made the ‘real’ thing that distributors or producers didn’t want, so how to translate that to a work which Deupree recorded and released himself? I don’t know, it seems odd. The work was re-done on a new computer, new plug ins, error files and such like, so it’s a bit of a different work. I wrote back then the following about the original Northern release: “From the outside it may seem that Taylor Deupree is a busy bee, music-wise, but Northern is his first solo release in two years. Deupree is always busy with his own 12k label (and off shoots Line and Happy), playing live concerts and working with others, so perhaps time is a bit sparse to do his own music. Recently Deupree moved from urban Brooklyn to upstate New York, and the change of atmosphere is a fact. Well, or not? Deupree’s music is, at least for a longer period of time, made of tranquil and silent elements. Textural music, made with sounds from the environment but also electric piano, melodica and guitar, but then highly processed. It is what he has been doing since quite some time now, wether he was in Brooklyn or Pound Ridge, where he is now. But it seems that he takes even more time to tell his story. Only six tracks are present here, mostly lasting around nine to ten minutes. Deupree wants the listener to sit back and take it all in, but in a very slow pace. Things develop, that’s for sure, but everything seems to be taking it’s time, gradually everything becomes bigger and bigger, with subtle sounds added, longer sustains. It’s warm music that may perhaps not fit springtime coming (the cover depicts a winter world), but it’s certainly one of the best Deupree works so far. The calmest and most slow one.” It seems to me that this new version is still very much covered with this review, although it also seems new elements came into place, a bit more emphasis on rhythm. This crackle… was it there before. That sort of thing. Deupree’s music belongs to the absolute top in the field of ambient glitch/microsound and this new version of Northern is another fine example.

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